Human beings can be proactive and engaged or, alternatively, passive and alienated, largely as a function of the social conditions in which they develop and function. Accordingly, research guided by self-determination theo~ has focused on the social-contextual conditions that facilitate versus forestall the natural processes of self-motivation and healthy psychological development. Specifically, factors have been examined that enhance versus undermine intrinsic motivation, self-regulation, and well-being. The findings have led to the postulate of three innate psychological needs--competence, autonomy, and relatednesswhich when satisfied yield enhanced self-motivation and mental health and when thwarted lead to diminished motivation and well-being. Also considered is the significance of these psychological needs and processes within domains such as health care, education, work, sport, religion, and psychotherapy. T he fullest representations of humanity show people to be curious, vital, and self-motivated. At their best, they are agentic and inspired, striving to learn; extend themselves; master new skills; and apply their talents responsibly. That most people show considerable effort, agency, and commitment in their lives appears, in fact, to be more normative than exceptional, suggesting some very positive and persistent features of human nature. Yet, it is also clear that the human spirit can be diminished or crushed and that individuals sometimes reject growth and responsibility. Regardless of social strata or cultural origin, examples of both children and adults who are apathetic, alienated, and irresponsible are abundant. Such non-optimal human functioning can be observed not only in our psychological clinics but also among the millions who, for hours a day, sit passively before their televisions, stare blankly from the back of their classrooms, or wait listlessly for the weekend as they go about their jobs. The persistent, proactive, and positive tendencies of human nature are clearly not invariantly apparent. The fact that human nature, phenotypically expressed, can be either active or passive, constructive or indolent, suggests more than mere dispositional differences and is a function of more than just biological endowments. It also bespeaks a wide range of reactions to social environments that is worthy of our most intense scientific investigation. Specifically, social contexts catalyze both within- and between-person differences in motivation and personal growth, resulting in people being more self-motivated, energized, and integrated in some situations, domains, and cultures than in others. Research on the conditions that foster versus undermine positive human potentials has both theoretical import and practical significance because it can contribute not only to formal knowledge of the causes of human behavior but also to the design of social environments that optimize people's development, performance, and well-being. Research guided by self-determination theory (SDT) has had an ongoing concern with precisely these

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Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being.

Self-determination theory (SDT) maintains that an understanding of human motivation requires a consideration of innate psychological needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness. We discuss the SDT concept of needs as it relates to previous need theories, emphasizing that needs specify the necessary conditions for psychological growth, integrity, and well-being. This concept of needs leads to the hypotheses that different regulatory processes underlying goal pursuits are differentially associated with effective functioning and well-being and also that different goal contents have different relations to the quality of behavior and mental health, specifically because different regulatory processes and different goal contents are associated with differing degrees of need satisfaction. Social contexts and individual differences that support satisfaction of the basic needs facilitate natural growth processes including intrinsically motivated behavior and integration of extrinsic motivations, whereas those that forestall autonomy, competence, or relatedness are associated with poorer motivation, performance, and well-being. We also discuss the relation of the psychological needs to cultural values, evolutionary processes, and other contemporary motivation theories.

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The "What" and "Why" of Goal Pursuits: Human Needs and the Self-Determination of Behavior

Mindfulness is an attribute of consciousness long believed to promote well-being. This research provides a theoretical and empirical examination of the role of mindfulness in psychological well-being. The development and psychometric properties of the dispositional Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS) are described. Correlational, quasi-experimental, and laboratory studies then show that the MAAS measures a unique quality of consciousness that is related to a variety of well-being constructs, that differentiates mindfulness practitioners from others, and that is associated with enhanced selfawareness. An experience-sampling study shows that both dispositional and state mindfulness predict self-regulated behavior and positive emotional states. Finally, a clinical intervention study with cancer patients demonstrates that increases in mindfulness over time relate to declines in mood disturbance and stress. Many philosophical, spiritual, and psychological traditions emphasize the importance of the quality of consciousness for the maintenance and enhancement of well-being (Wilber, 2000). Despite this, it is easy to overlook the importance of consciousness in human well-being because almost everyone exercises its primary capacities, that is, attention and awareness. Indeed, the relation between qualities of consciousness and well-being has received little empirical attention. One attribute of consciousness that has been much-discussed in relation to well-being is mindfulness. The concept of mindfulness has roots in Buddhist and other contemplative traditions where conscious attention and awareness are actively cultivated. It is most commonly defined as the state of being attentive to and aware of what is taking place in the present. For example, Nyanaponika Thera (1972) called mindfulness “the clear and single-minded awareness of what actually happens to us and in us at the successive moments of perception” (p. 5). Hanh (1976) similarly defined mindfulness as “keeping one’s consciousness alive to the present reality” (p. 11). Recent research has shown that the enhancement of mindfulness through training facilitates a variety of well-being outcomes (e.g., Kabat-Zinn, 1990). To date, however, there has been little work examining this attribute as a naturally occurring characteristic. Recognizing that most everyone has the capacity to attend and to be aware, we nonetheless assume (a) that individuals differ in their propensity or willingness to be aware and to sustain attention to what is occurring in the present and (b) that this mindful capacity varies within persons, because it can be sharpened or dulled by a variety of factors. The intent of the present research is to reliably identify these inter- and intrapersonal variations in mindfulness, establish their relations to other relevant psychological constructs, and demonstrate their importance to a variety of forms of psychological well-being.

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The Benefits of Being Present: Mindfulness and Its Role in Psychological Well-Being

Five studies tested two general hypotheses: Individuals differ in their use of emotion regulation strategies such as reappraisal and suppression, and these individual differences have implications for affect, well-being, and social relationships. Study 1 presents new measures of the habitual use of reappraisal and suppression. Study 2 examines convergent and discriminant validity. Study 3 shows that reappraisers experience and express greater positive emotion and lesser negative emotion, whereas suppressors experience and express lesser positive emotion, yet experience greater negative emotion. Study 4 indicates that using reappraisal is associated with better interpersonal functioning, whereas using suppression is associated with worse interpersonal functioning. Study 5 shows that using reappraisal is related positively to well-being, whereas using suppression is related negatively.

Individual differences in two emotion regulation processes: implications for affect, relationships, and well-being.

Subjective well-being (SWB), people's emotional and cognitive evaluations of their lives, includes what lay people call happiness, peace, fulfillment, and life satisfaction. Personality dispositions such as extraversion, neuroticism, and self-esteem can markedly influence levels of SWB. Although personality can explain a significant amount of the variability in SWB, life circumstances also influence long-term levels. Cultural variables explain differences in mean levels of SWB and appear to be due to objective factors such as wealth, to norms dictating appropriate feelings and how important SWB is considered to be, and to the relative approach versus avoidance tendencies of societies. Culture can also moderate which variables most influence SWB. Although it is challenging to assess SWB across societies, the measures have some degree of cross-cultural validity. Although nations can be evaluated by their levels of SWB, there are still many open questions in this area.

Personality, Culture, and Subjective Well-Being: Emotional and Cognitive Evaluations of Life

In 2 studies, college students evidenced differing levels of the "Big-Five" traits in different roles, supporting social-contextualist assumptions regarding trait expression. Supporting organismic theories of personality, within-subject variations in the Big Five were predictable from variations in the degree of psychological authenticity felt in different roles. In addition, two concepts of self-integrat ion or true selfhood were examined: 1 based on high consistency of trait profiles across roles (i.e., lowself-concept differentiation; E. M. Donahue, R. W. Robins, B. W. Roberts, & O. P. John, 1993) and 1 based on high mean levels of authenticity felt across roles. The 2 self-integration measures were found to be independent predictors of psychological and physical well-being indicating that both self-consistency and psychological authenticity are vital for organized functioning and health.

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Trait Self and True Self: Cross-Role Variation in the Big-Five Personality Traits and Its Relations With Psychological Authenticity and Subjective Well-Being

This article presents a meta-analysis of the experimental literature that has examined the effect of performance and mastery achievement goals on intrinsic motivation. Summary analyses provided support for the hypothesis that the pursuit of performance goals has an undermining effect on intrinsic motivation relative to the pursuit of mastery goals. Moderator analyses were conducted in an attempt to explain significant variation in the magnitude and direction of this effect across studies. Results indicated that the undermining effect of performance goals relative to mastery goals was contingent on whether participants received confirming or nonconfirming competence feedback, and on whether the experimental procedures induced a performance-approach or performance-avoidance orientation. These findings provide conceptual clarity to the literature on achievement goals and intrinsic motivation and suggest numerous avenues for subsequent empirical work.

Achievement Goals and Intrinsic Motivation: A Meta-Analytic Review

Two studies examine the relations of self-complexity (Linville, 1987) and the authenticity of self-aspects to well being Study 1 results show that self-complexity is largely unrelated to well being, whereas the authenticity of the self-aspects that constitute it is associated with greater well being Study 2 uses a two-week, prospective design to replicate Linville's finding of a buffering effect of complexity on the negative outcomes associated with stressful events In addition, study 2 results revealed either null or negative relations of complexity to well being, whereas the authenticity of self-aspects was again positively related to well being The findings are discussed with respect to the meaning of self-complexity for personality functioning, and the importance of having one's self-aspects be authentic According to many theorists, the diversity of roles, demands and models of identity to which people are exposed within modern cultures has fostered a greater complexity to human personalities (Baumeister & Muraven, 1996; Ryan & Deci, 2003) People adapt to such diverse demands and roles by adopting different styles, modes of behavior and "faces" that they can employ within different life contexts (Gergen, 1991) How this increased differentiation or complexity impacts upon health and well being remains, however, a matter of debate A popular paradigm for investigating personality complexity and its relations with well being was developed by Linville (1985, 1987) Her procedure assesses the extent to which people report multiple aspects to their personality, and it is the number and independence of these "self-aspects" that comprise what she calls self-complexity Linville specifically highlights a potential adaptive advantage of greater self-complexity--namely that it can serve as a buffer to stress With greater self-complexity (ie, more, and less interrelated, self-aspects) a person's "eggs are not all in one basket", and thus a blow to any one self-aspect should have less negative impact on well being At the same time, the idea that less inter-related elements would conduce to greater well being seems to contradict traditional clinical wisdom (Ryan, 1993) as well as some recent empirical evidence Donohue, Robins, Roberts and John (1993), for example, argued that insofar as differentiation or complexity refers to the existence of dissimilar and/or functionally independent parts to one's personality, it may represent a "fragmented" self They showed that the tendency to see one's self as different in different roles predicted poorer general adjustment Linville (1987) too, despite the salience of her buffering hypothesis, suggested that complexity may be associated with "chronic, low-level stress, perhaps because of role conflicts or multiple demands on time and attention" (p 672) A meta-analysis by Rafaeli-Mor and Steinberg (2002) also suggests that the benefits of self-complexity remain unclear Their analysis of 70 studies relating Linville's self-complexity measure to well being suggested that: a) when considered as an individual difference, self-complexity is modestly and negatively related to well being; and b) the hypothesis that complexity buffers one against stress has received, at best, mixed support The present research revisits the relations of self-complexity to well being by investigating a hypothesis derived from Self-determination theory (SDT; Deci & Ryan, 1985; Ryan & Deci, 2004) We argue that it is not complexity per se that hinders well being, but rather the presence within one's self-concept of aspects that are poorly integrated, and thus represent inauthentic ways of being Accordingly, we examine the effects of both self-complexity and the authenticity of the self-aspects that constitute it on stress and well being over time Before turning to specific predictions we first review work on self-complexity and SDT, respectively …

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Laird J. Rawsthorne

Papers

Trait Self and True Self: Cross-Role Variation in the Big-Five Personality Traits and Its Relations With Psychological Authenticity and Subjective Well-Being

Achievement Goals and Intrinsic Motivation: A Meta-Analytic Review

Self-Complexity and the Authenticity of Self-Aspects: Effects on Well Being and Resilience to Stressful Events.